Trying Lomo Potsdam

Intro: I’m not one for trying odd film stocks that give weird results, I’m not knocking them, it’s just not for me. You know the sort of thing, out of date film that gives purple photo’s or “red scale” which I understand is just film loaded into the cassette the wrong way around so you shoot through the base of the film etc etc. Maybe for that reason I’ve never used a Lomography film before. I do realise that they sell films that give “normal” images, they’ve just been off my radar. When I heard that there was a regular black and white film that was 100 iso, that peaked my interest and I thought I’d have a go.

Problem: If you own something like a Leica IIIf, you need to take care when loading it. The film needs to engage in a certain way or the shutter in extreme cases can be damaged. It’s also possible to rip the film and bits can get into the shutter and cause issues. It’s nothing terrible, it just needs care! To aid this, Leica made a film trimmer. They give their accessories very weird names that I’ve never got the hang of, in the case of the film trimmer it’s known as a “Ablon” – think of a hinge! The genuine article sells on eBay for upward of £150 these days – madness!! I mention this for three reasons – 1, The original camera store I worked in, had one of these in the drawer, it was years before I learned what it was for, and in 8 years I only remember using it once! I suspect it got dumped at some point, if only I knew then what I know now! 2, by coincidence I came across an old roll of HP5 (not plus) the other day, and it was trimmed for Leica. I’ve not been able to ascertain whether Ilford ever sold them like this, or whether this has been home trimmed. If it wasn’t Ilford then it’s been very well done! 3, and to get back on track, my roll of Lomography Potsdam had gone the other way and had an even shorter leader than we are used to. It did cause a few issues in my Leica M4-P that I was using, to the point where I had to take it out and reload it. Why it’s not cut the “standard” way we all know and love, I have no idea.

The Results: Film loaded I set off. I had a “photo day” planned and the first port of call was the Church of St. Margaret in East Wellow, Hampshire. It’s off the beaten track, one leaves the A36, down a country lane, then turning off that, down one of those country lanes where it’s just wide enough for one car. Luckily that was a short stretch and I didn’t meet anything coming in the other direction! The church is the burial location for the Nightingale family, their family home was Embley Park not far away. Most famous of course was Florence, credited with “inventing” modern nursing during the Crimean War. The family have a memorial.

The Church: The building that stands today dates from 1215, the year of the signing of the Magna Carter, the site is older and apparently there are foundations dating back to the time of King Alfred! Inside there are some very old wall paintings, discovered under layers of plaster in 1891. They date from the 1200’s. The light level inside was very low, I went to the lowest shutter speed that I dared and opened right up on the lens, f2.8, interestingly Potsdam did better than my mobile phone!

Developing: There are no suggested times inside the film box, neither does Ilford suggest any so I turned to the Massive Dev Chart. Their suggestion for Ilfosol3 1+9 20 degrees, was 6 minutes. That’s what I went with, and it gave me a good set of negatives. All Analogue Wonderland (and Lomo) say about the film is that it’s a cinema film. That would explain why there is no edge printing – no numbers. Surprisingly it doesn’t have “movie” shaped sprocket holes, but the more traditional still camera perfs. It’s claimed to be silver rich, and from what I can see it is. The negatives have that gutsy look about them. I’d love to make a darkroom print from a couple of the negatives to see what they produce. I wonder if this is Orwo film? I suspect it may be. It’s good stuff, I like it, may well use some more. In this case it cost me more than Ilford FP4 Plus, my benchmark, so I may not hurry, but next time I need to buy film, I’ll look to see if there is a deal on!